Before we fire this machine up, let’s take a moment to appreciate the gorgeous aesthetic of Game Bro.
The Scratch of Universe A.
The Scratch is not just a Time thing. The Space symbol seen here is rather prominent, wouldn’t you say?
Complementary Aspects start to become interchangeable around extremes. The Scratch is such an extreme.
In this panel in Act 5 Act 2, the trolls around their (damaged) Victory Door are gathered in a peculiar way. They were all collectively huddled around the door in all previous panels taking place here; this formation is exclusive to this panel.
It’s the Sgrub logo, but split up into its horizontal set and its vertical set.
Strange parallels: The scenery of Calliope’s dreambubble. That Sburb logo can probably be interpreted better as a type of stage with this in mind.
Above: Clubs Boxcar destroys the B2 Battlefield.
Below: Meenah kills all of the A1 players.
Spades Slick regularly defies canon. His powers come from absurd visual jokes.
Above: Jake acts really strange in A6A6I5. Why? Because…
Below: Jake fights the Felt in A6A6A6. Fighting them tends to send you flailing across the timeline. The Felt are also capable of attacking people’s past selves.
Top-left: Godhead Pickle Inspector, in Problem Sleuth’s epilogue, fondly regards creation while wearing the Stiller shades that witnessed every event in the universe.
Top-right: Dave is introduced in Homestuck Act 2, wearing Ben Stiller’s shades. MSPA’s legacy carries on.
Bottom-left: Dave in Act 4. I suspect this recurring motif has to do with memory, with events that are best forgotten living on regardless of what happens. (Such as this doomed timeline.)
Bottom-right: Dave in Act 6 Act 6 Act 6. Serenity’s/The Firefly’s appearance during this flash serves, to all characters she/it passes, as a subconscious reminder of all they fight for, all that has come before– gone, but not forgotten. The pre-Retcon timeline (from which the fireflies came) is essentially one massive exploration of this theme.
Ancestor Parallels: Aradia and The Handmaid
But also!
Above: Jade in A5A2, having alchemized a lot of cool stuff and had fun in the middle of a chaotic entry.
Below: John in A6I5, having finally succumbed to boredom and done a lot of fun things in the middle of a chaotic entry.
There’s the previous post, but then there are…
(both from A5A2, of characters in a temporary freedom before pretty profound doom)
(A5A2, A5A1, respectively, of characters upset at a vague loss of agency; this parallel is lampshaded by Karkat imagining both Jades making out)
(both A5A2, of characters staring into unfathomable secrets that will come to change them)
So… what, then? Does this imply that Jade and Aradia are canonically, like, the same person or related or something?
Well. The thing about Homestuck is that every character has visual parallels with several others. The visual parallels don’t necessarily tell us about the subject characters; instead, they are illustrations of connections between circumstances.
See this post, for example. In it, a very mundane parallel is drawn between Jade and John. The significance comes with the context, the circumstances that lead the characters to their respective moments.
Through visual parallels, the focus is not on how similar characters are but on how different.
…Jade?
(A5A2, A6A2)
(A3, A6A1, both characters speaking to their grandfather’s corpse)
(A3, A6A1)
(A4, A6A3; characters witness the total apocalypse of the Incipisphere)
…John?
(A5A2, A6A5[A1]. In both cases, the act begins with a flash featuring character [Karkat/Jake] isolated with a computer and unhelpful trolls, so the character decides to send a message to someone in a red headset [John/Jane]. Karkat’s message is designed to spark an emotional reaction [that does not come], ends up being a romantic gesture. Jake’s message is not designed to spark an emotional reaction [but one comes anyway], ends up being a gesture about romance.)
(A6I5, A6A3, both characters are seeing reunions out of nowhere)
(A1, A6A5[A1], both characters say goodbye to their childhood fixations, the future is uncertain)